Kelly Reilly has been one of Britain's most quietly formidable actresses since her professional debut in 1995. She's done Shakespeare at the Old Vic, held her own opposite Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents, and gone toe-to-toe with Kevin Costner as the fearsome Beth Dutton in Yellowstone — a performance that made her a household name across America. On screen, her presence is commanding and her instincts impeccable. Off screen, however, her relationship with fashion has been considerably less sure-footed. Over the years, there have been a string of red carpet appearances where the choices simply didn't land. Here's a look at some of the most notable misses.
The 2012 premiere of Flight — Denzel Washington's film in which Reilly played a pivotal supporting role — should have been a strong moment for her. Instead, her outerwear choice drew attention for all the wrong reasons. The coat she wore over her premiere look was bulky, shapeless, and visually overwhelming, obscuring whatever she had on underneath and giving the overall impression of someone who had grabbed the nearest thing on the way out the door. For a woman capable of such physical grace on screen, the disconnect was jarring. A premiere is a costume in its own right, and this particular costume told the wrong story.
There's a famous saying in fashion: the shoe makes the outfit. At one of the Yellowstone premiere events, Reilly demonstrated the corollary — the wrong shoe can also break it. Her choice of boots clashed with the rest of her look in a way that felt mismatched rather than intentionally eclectic. The silhouette created by her footwear undermined the lines of her dress, and the overall effect was disjointed. This is particularly surprising given that Yellowstone is a show defined by a very specific, carefully considered visual aesthetic. A cast member arriving at its premiere in footwear that looked like an afterthought was a notable misstep.
White can be a powerfully clean choice on the red carpet — crisp, modern, and statement-making. When it's the wrong shade of white for someone's skin tone, though, the effect reverses entirely. At a Tribeca Film Festival appearance, Reilly opted for an all-white ensemble that, unfortunately, drained rather than elevated her complexion. The result was a visual flattening — her features seemed to recede rather than project, and the overall look had a washed-out quality that photographs unforgivingly. The choice wasn't ugly; it was simply wrong for her specifically, which in some ways is a trickier fashion mistake than an outright bad outfit.
Premieres exist on a spectrum of formality, and reading that spectrum correctly is part of the art of the red carpet. At the premiere of Les Poupées Russes — a film Reilly appeared in as part of the French Auberge Espagnole trilogy — she arrived in a look that felt significantly underdressed for the occasion. The overall impression was more Saturday errands than film premiere, and while there's a school of thought that says effortless casualness is its own kind of chic, this particular execution didn't quite get there. The energy of a premiere calls for something more — not necessarily more elaborate, but more considered.
Florals are perennially tricky. At their best, a floral print is fresh, romantic, and subtly complex. At their worst, they read as dated and costume-like. At one of the gala events surrounding the Flight press tour, Reilly appeared in a floral dress that fell into the latter category. The print itself had a quality that felt lifted from a past decade, and the cut didn't do enough to modernize it. The cumulative effect was of a woman who had reached for something safe and ended up with something forgettable — which, given Reilly's capacity for bold choices in other areas of her life, felt like a missed opportunity.
The Old Times revival, in which Reilly starred on the West End, was a critically acclaimed piece of theater that showcased her stage credentials to new audiences. Her appearance at related press events, however, suggested the wardrobe attention had gone entirely into the production itself. Her off-stage look at various Old Times events had a thrown-together quality — pieces that didn't quite cohere into a deliberate statement. There's a difference between artfully unstudied and simply unstudied, and these appearances leaned toward the latter.
For the premiere of Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 — the final chapter of a series that had made Reilly famous worldwide — expectations for her red carpet appearance were naturally high. What she delivered was a little black dress that, conceptually, should have been a safe and elegant choice. Unfortunately, the fit let the look down. The proportions seemed slightly off, with the dress pulling in places and sagging in others in ways that a proper fitting session should have caught. A perfectly fitted LBD is one of fashion's great guarantees; an ill-fitted one is one of its more reliable disappointments. For such a significant occasion, the execution simply wasn't there.